I’m headed up to El Dorado tomorrow morning (Monday) to put together the Jayhawk Conference feature for our College Football Preview — and of course it is going to be on the two-time defending national champion Butler Grizzlies. I always enjoy my trips to ED before the season, mainly because it’s usually the one time I get to really get a glimpse into the inner-workings of the program. You get to see the players interacting with each other, coaches trying to keep the whole ship on course and, you know, hopefully pump out some pretty good stories when it all disseminates.
Butler coach Troy Morrell told a great story about Smith recently, talking about how he moved the then-freshman to tackle in last year’s national championship game, where Smith would be going head-to-head with Snow College’s James Aiono — a five-star recruit and the top-ranked junior college defensive lineman in the country. In Butler’s double-overtime win, Smith put Aiono, who will play for the University of Utah this fall, on absolute lockdown. That ain’t easy, folks. Basically a street fight between two 6-foot-2, 290-pound high Division I prospects for the whole shebang, last man standing wins. And Smith won. But he’s not alone as a first-team preseason All-American for the two-time defending national champs — kicker Logan Ortiz and linebacker Forlando Johnson are, too.
I’ll be trying to figure out who the favorites are in the race for Smith’s service for his final two years this week … but I’m thinking Bill Snyder wouldn’t mind the Hutch native making pancakes in Manhattan.
Fort Hays State quarterback and Shawnee Mission Northwest product Mike Garrison was nice enough to chat with Sunflower Slate for a few minutes Thursday evening about a wide range of topics — from trying to get the Tigers into the MIAA discussion (might happen), getting his jaw broken (not fun) and winning a national football title at Butler Community College (where he also played basketball). Oh, and he let us take a peek into his IPod, where he’s rocking Disturbed.
The Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission banquet is June 26 and there are a couple of Sunflower Slate-ians up for the men’s and women’s college athlete of the year awards, including Former Wichita North and Butler defensive end Zac Clark, who is battling for a starting spot at Oregon this fall. Cowley has two nominees in men’s tennis player Boomer Saia — son of CC athletic director Tom Saia — and all-everything softball standout Jacey Juden, who is headed to Northwestern Oklahoma State. Butler trackster Leah Thompson is also up for the women’s award.
Here’s how it breaks down — an anonymous bowl committee set up a game, the Mid-America Bowl — that was supposed to be played at Wichita State’s Cessna Stadium on Dec. 6, 2009. The NJCAA said that the powers-that-be behind this game called them and said it wasn’t going to go off, and the national office didn’t get much more than that.
But, that leaves two bowl games left in Kansas. The Citizens Bank Bowl in Pittsburg (Dec. 9) that will be played at PSU’s Carnie Smith Stadium, and the Salt City Bowl in Hutchinson. Presumably, these are bowls set up to facilitate the local schools — Fort Scott for the game in Pittsburg and Hutchinson for the game in Hutch. Under that same presumption, I’m assuming the Wichita bowl game would have been a vehicle for Butler. And, of course, there’s a chance that one of these game could end up the national championship game featuring the Region VI champion, because hey, that’s where the champ has come from the last two years.
One thing to ponder: Who was behind the Wichita game and why did it fall apart? Were three games just too much for one state? Anyways … more on this later. But having these bowl games can only help. Gotta think Hutch’s new digs are set up perfectly for an event like this.
University of Oregon defensive end Zac Clark had a nice day at the UO spring game Saturday in Eugene — he had a sack for the Green team (which was the first-team defense and second-team offense) in its 21-14 win over the White team. Clark, who prepped at Wichita North then won two national titles at Butler Community College, transferred to UO in December.
Funny story about Butler Community College men’s coach Steve Johnson — who was nice enough to do an interview with me on Sunday for a story in Monday’s Eagle. He did this all after dropping off his wife, Gina, somewhere and then balancing a 4-year old and a 2-year old, who alternately screamed and learned to count during the interview, which, during the course of , he also got his kids some drinks, asked them to be quiet maybe 10 times (including one where he went “okay, yes, someone is learning to count”) and set up an interview for pitcher Connor Sinclair, a Goddard product who is 7-0 for the first-place Grizzlies.
Funny to me because I don’t have kids. And impressive because he did a pretty good interview while playing Mr. Mom.
Here’s a heartbreaker out of Canyon, Texas: the Emporia State women fell to West Texas A&M 86-83 at the NCAA Division II South Central Regional, and that was after coming from 10 points down with 1:47 left and without MIAA player of the year Ida Edwards for the last 14:21 after Edwards went down with a knee injury. Hope she’s ok. Andrea Leiker led the Hornets with 22 points in her final game for ESU. Also in the South Central Region, Washburn fell 72-63 to Central Oklahoma after the Bronchos rallied from a halftime deficit and sustained a game-opening 11-2 run by the Lady Blues. Tough exit for the MIAA, who I’m sure wanted to get one of their two teams out of the region. Here’s a link to the tourney bracket.
Take a couple of days off to go skiing at the west side Palace resort and everybody forgets you exist…
Bob Lutz wrote a nice column today on the Newman-Friends basketball rivalry, which has ceased to exist in no small part because of Newman’s move to a full-fledged NCAA Division II school. So here’s a question: If Newman can play Bethel, Tabor and Sterling, then why not Friends? Discuss amongst yourselves.
